Pause. “And have you been in there since he left?”
“Not by myself. I showed the police where it was though.”
Pause. “May we see it?”
She shrugged. “Of course. The police had a quick look at it, but didn’t find anything. They thought Daniel might have removed whatever was important. Or, of course, whoever murdered him had.”
Chapter 16
There was dust everywhere. Everywhere. Stewart looked at his suit, which had inevitably become a dust-magnet. Yet another dry-cleaning fast-approaching, then.
They stood in the garage. It was lit by a single lightbulb hanging from the middle of the low ceiling. Although ‘lit’ was a strong word, the pale light not penetrating much of the musty darkness. The air felt heavy and had a stale smell, too long in the same place without access to the outside world.
Most of the garage was taken up with stuff. And most of the stuff was unreachable because more stuff was piled in front of it. Old children’s games, boxes of clothing, what looked like bits and pieces of a table tennis table, random bits of camping equipment, some weights, bits of a barbecue, shoes and other, unidentifiable stuff, all set to live there for the rest of its days.
A narrow corridor had been made to one corner where a stout old chair had been pulled up to a small wooden table, the wood planed and varnished. An electric heater stood beside it. Dakar had begun examining the set-up, and Stewart, after scribbling down a quick description of the garage, joined him.
The table itself was disappointingly clean, only a blank pad of paper and a few pens on top. The two far corners of the table were fast against one of the garage corners. A little bit of the nearside edge of the table was blocked off by a metallic shelf that ran along the garage wall. Dakar began looking at the shelves on either side, peering into them to see what was there.
Stewart crouched to look at the pad, using the light of his mobile and angling his head to see whether there were any indents in the paper from someone writing on the sheet on top of it. Nothing, of course.
Then he squatted down and looked under the table. There was an old filing cabinet there, painted a horrible off-white greenish colour, where the paint hadn’t yet flecked off to reveal the rust. Stewart recognised the type from all those films made in the eighties. He reached for the first drawer but stopped when Dakar spoke.
“My brother.” The voice was calm but had an urgency in it that made Stewart stop as his hand went to curl around the handle. Stewart looked over his shoulder, where Dakar was holding out a pair of disposable gloves towards him. He was nodding towards the filing cabinet.
“A good idea. But use these. Just in case the police decide to come back and look again.”
Stewart nodded slowly, and pulled his hand back, remembering his experience with the wine bottle at Hanover House. No need for the cops to be looking for his fingerprints again. He took the gloves from Dakar and put them on, enjoying the snapping noise they made.
He turned back and pulled at the first handle, a thrill of excitement going through him. The drawer made a nasty noise as it came out, the metal parts sticking together. In it, there were a few pads and pencils, some pens, and other assorted stationery.
The next drawer down, making a far nastier noise than the first, revealed folders, all of them empty, standing upright in the filing system. They looked like they hadn’t been touched in the last few years. The third drawer, the last one, was so completely stuck that Stewart could only open it a few inches. The light of his mobile phone showed nothing but dust.
Stewart closed the last drawer disappointedly. He opened the top one again, and had a look through the supplies there, but there was nothing he could see that caught his attention. He opened the first and second drawers all the way out, touching their backs, but he only felt the expected thin metallic sheet.
He closed it all and stood back up again. The thrill of excitement was only a memory now.
Dakar was leaning past the table, looking at the end of one of the shelves that ended beside the table.
“There is a hook here, screwed into the shelf. Recently, I believe.” Stewart leaned over the desk next to Dakar, looking at the side of the shelf. There was indeed a small metal hook there, shiny next to the dull metal of the shelf. It was out of sight if you were standing at the desk.
Stewart leaned back as Dakar sat himself down in the chair. It gave an ominous creak. “The hook is, I believe, for a key.”
Stewart nodded. Technically you could probably hang a coat from it as well, but if it was for your coat, it was in an odd place. You’d need to take it off, reach all the way around, and even then the coat would probably spill onto the top of the desk.
But Dakar was now reaching down to the filing cabinet, locking it in order to be able to pull out the key. He didn’t really have to move to reach around to the hook and put the key on it, just shift his weight slightly. He brought the key back, examining it closely.
“Weird that the drawers scrape out, but the key turns so easily.”
Pause. “Yes. And he locked the door, and ensured he had the only key. And yet he would leave his filing cabinet unlocked, with the key in there.”
Stewart looked at Dakar, then back down at the filing cabinet. He crouched all the way down, to the underside of the filing cabinet. Craning his neck, he saw it had been raised, and stood on four small wheels.
The excitement coursed through him, twice as strong. He grasped the handle of the top drawer again, and pulled. The drawer itself didn’t open, as it was locked, but the entire filing cabinet ran all the way out smoothly. There was an open-top compartment tacked on to the back.
Dakar smiled, and slowly reached around the shelf and hooked the key onto the hook. “Bravo.” He looked at the revealed cavity. “Would you care to do the honours?”
Stewart nodded. It felt like he had electricity in his veins rather than blood. He reached down and pulled out a heavy black camera bag. He put it on the table while he looked back into the compartment. The removal of the camera bag had revealed a couple of big brown manila envelopes, A4 size. He pulled them out as well, placing them on the desk.
Dakar reached into the main compartment of the camera bag and withdrew an expensive-looking camera. He placed it on the desk, and also took out three lenses, one of them huge.
Stewart picked up the first envelope, before stopping as a part of his brain suddenly broke through his excitement and flooded his mind with doubt.
This was probably a police crime scene, or whatever they called it. Looking into the envelope might constitute interference in an ongoing investigation – a murder investigation, to boot. Maybe even opening the filing cabinet hadn’t been allowed.
Hanover House welled up in his memory again, with an image of DC Lemkin accusing him of tampering with a crime scene. Well, maybe not accusing, maybe that was too strong a word. Trying to put the wind up him, that was probably a better way of saying it. But still. It had been scary enough, even if that hadn’t been the way he’d retold it to his mates.
Stewart looked at the envelope in his hand.
“Eh, am I allowed to open this?”
Dakar paused. “Yes.”
Stewart nodded once, waiting for some kind of further explanation from Dakar, or at least reassurance, but none seemed forthcoming. He took a deep breath.
Right then. Sod it.
He opened the envelope, and pulled out one small square piece of paper. It was some kind of form, with a bit of handwriting on it. He held it up for Dakar, who examined it.
“A prescription form. For Zopiclone. Signed by Eleanor, although the handwriting is difficult to read.”
Stewart looked at the form again before he put it back in the envelope, placing it on the desk. He picked up the other envelope. It felt heavier. He felt the excitement building in him.
There were a number of photographs. He looked at the first couple, then took out the stack and put them on the table, where he spread them out. There were arou
nd twenty in total, each with a date and time stamp. Stewart recognised the background as Hotel Black. It was a posh new hotel, futuristic-themed, although in a robotic, computer kind of way rather than a spaceship kind of way. He’d never been inside, but he heard that the staff whizzed around on fake hover boards, wearing helmets.
The first few, stamped 15.9.17 at ten at night, showed a man hanging around outside a building. He was short and stocky, his muscular frame clear through the jacket he was wearing. He had short hair, almost like a military buzz cut.
The first three photos showed the guy outside, standing on the large, impressive steps of the hotel. The next six or seven of them showed a woman approaching, although only from behind, so all Stewart could see was that she had big curly blonde hair, high heels and was wearing some kind of business suit. They weren’t the clearest photos, and in one a passing car obscured the entire scene.
The photos showed the man and woman hugging, kissing and then entering the hotel, hand in hand. Then the photos seemed to begin again, stamped 27.9.17, again at ten at night. They showed the same man hanging around outside the hotel, in different clothes. Again the approach of the woman, again with big curly blonde hair, wearing a suit, with heels. Again the embrace, and the entrance.
Stewart stood back from the photos, while Dakar examined them for a few seconds more. Eventually Dakar straightened up as well.
“Daniel was spying on someone.” Stewart couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.
Pause. “It appears so.” Dakar looked over at the compartment. “There is another sheet in there, I believe.”
Stewart looked in and saw another sheet, lying full against the side. He pulled it out, and laid it on the table beside the photographs.
It was plain, with a few bits of scribbled writing. The first was ‘15/9: GD at hotel with ?? Stayed there at least two hours. Unclear’, and then a few lines down, ‘18/9, met MD. CD followed. Thug’. Below this was ‘27/9: GD at hotel, with ?? (same ?? as before?) Stayed there at least three hours. Overnight??’
Pause. Dakar looked around at him, ghost of a smile on his face. “I suggest we go inside and ask Sarah-Anne if she knows anything about the prescription form or the photographs. And we should also try to identify the hotel in question.”
“Eh, I think I know which hotel it is.” Stewart spoke hesitatingly, because he was lying. He didn’t think, he knew. He was 100% certain. “I’m pretty sure it’s that fancy new one near Tollcross. The futuristic one. I think it’s called Hotel Black, or something like that. I recognise it from the stairs. Can’t think of any other hotel in the city that has these type of stairs. Maybe the big guys out in the countryside, Gleneagles or whatever.”
Stewart re-ran that last sentence in his head. He had never actually seen Gleneagles hotel, but it stood to reason that it would have to have big, impressive stairs.
Pause. “Thank you, my brother. That makes things easier.” Dakar tidied the photographs before he slid everything back into the envelope, notation page on top. Dakar picked up the bag, but as he did so, they both heard a noise. Dakar stopped, then reached inside the various pockets, finally coming out with a small, flat, black device that had a screen.
“What’s that?”
Pause. Dakar turned it over once. “I believe it’s the base unit for a GPS tracker.”
“So Daniel was tracking whoever he was spying on as well?”
Pause. Dakar opened the envelope and put his finger on the guy in the photo. “I should not be surprised if the other part of this device is in the car belonging to whoever this man is.”
Chapter 17
“Did Daniel take these?”
They were once more at the high chairs at the counter in the kitchen, Sarah-Anne looking at the photographs. Dakar had taken the envelope inside and spread a few of the photographs out in front of her.
Pause. “We believe so. Did he have an interest in photography?”
She shook her head. “Not that I knew of.”
Pause. “We also found a GPS tracker device. Did you know Daniel had one of them?”
“He had GPS in the garage? But he had one in his car, as well.”
Pause. “A GPS tracker, my sister,” Dakar repeated, emphasising the word ‘tracker’. “It is something that is used to track the movements of someone else.”
“Oh. No, I didn’t know he had one of them.”
Pause. “What about the people in the photographs?”
She studied them again. “Well, they’re a bit blurry,” she said eventually, straightening back up. “I suppose Daniel was just learning how to be a spy when he took these?” She had her eyebrows raised.
Dakar just smiled back.
She put a finger on a picture. “I recognise him.”
Stewart sat up immediately, looking at Dakar, his pen hovering over his pad. But the guy looked infuriatingly calm, taking his pause before he asked the obvious question.
“Who do you believe the man in the photograph is?”
“Graham Donaldson. Martina Donaldson’s husband, Craig’s dad. He runs a business, landscape gardening, focusing upon sustainability and permaculture.”
Stewart looked up at this last word, eyebrows furrowed. Sarah-Anne caught his expression. “You know, the cultivation of land and animals in accordance with nature. So that anything you take out of the system is put back in, and it all works in balance. It’s truly excellent work. Very much like the philosophy of the Native Americans. Before Caucasian Europeans committed genocide against them, of course.”
Stewart nodded once dubiously, then wrote the word ‘permaculture’ down, along with all the other information, even the genocide part.
“What about the woman in the photograph?”
“I don’t know who she is.”
Dakar paused for longer than usual, studying the photographs again. “Did Daniel and Graham know each other at all?”
“They had met each other a few times, mainly because Craig and Sandra went to the same school. That was it, though, so far as I know.”
Pause. “And Graham Donaldson was not here the evening that Daniel was murdered?”
“He wasn’t invited, but he was here all right.”
Stewart’s tongue poked out as he struggled to get that one down.
Pause. “He came into your house uninvited?”
She shook her head. “After everything had happened, we phoned an ambulance for Tom and the police about Daniel. Well, the police found Graham sitting in his car across the street. Apparently trying to stay hidden.”
Dakar’s eyes tightened slightly. “Did you see anyone enter the garage the night Daniel was murdered?”
Sarah-Anne shook her head. “No. Well, the front part was always down. It’s not been open in so long that it’s rusted shut. So the only entry now is the side door, the one you used. But it would have been locked. Daniel always locked it, and he kept the only key with him. I mean, I was in and out of the house getting drinks for people, so it’s possible something happened and I missed it, but I doubt it.”
Pause. “The murderer could have taken the key from Daniel when he murdered him?”
Sarah-Anne paused in turn. “Yes, I suppose he could have. But his keys were in a pocket on the body when it was found though. So then the murderer would have had to have put it back.”
Pause. “My sister, you say you didn’t invite Graham Donaldson. Yet you invited Martina and Craig.”
“Yes, I invited them. Well, to be honest, Martina pretty much invited herself. She knew it was Daniel’s birthday. And she brought Craig along to see Sandra, although I don’t think they’ve seen much of each other since Sandra went to uni.”
Pause. “Why then not invite Graham?”
“Martina asked me not to. I know they’ve been having marital problems recently. Maybe Martina found out Graham was having this affair.” She indicated the photographs.
Pause. Long pause. Dakar spoke more slowly than usual. “So Daniel was following Graham, taki
ng photographs of him, and Graham was seemingly staking out your and Daniel’s house?”
Sarah-Anne shrugged, and nodded. “That’s the way it se— … Martina!” Sarah-Anne’s tone exploded. “Oh, that woman! She must have found out that Graham was having an affair! And then asked Daniel to follow him for her, and take the photographs. And …”
She put a finger on the dates on the photographs, up in the corner. “Yes. This must be where Daniel was, those nights when he disappeared during the week. I think the dates are about right.”
Pause. “Martina knew Daniel well enough to ask him to spy for her?”
“Apparently. That must have been why she wanted to come here that night!” Sarah-Anne’s tone grew stronger and grimmer. She looked up at the ceiling, eyes seeing something other than the white paint.
Pause. “Is there any way Graham could have got into your house unnoticed during the evening? When you were out at the fireworks, for example?”
Sarah-Anne hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “None. The front door self-locks, and there’s a bolt on it that I always use. It was bolted when people began leaving, and I bolted it behind everyone. And there’s no way to get directly into the back of the house. There’s a wall between the garage and the house, so there’s no passageway.”
Pause. “If someone were inside and wanted to open the door, would that be possible? If they had no keys?”
“You mean that maybe Graham did get into the house around the back and then needed to get out? Yes. You can just open the door from the inside, and the bolt can be opened too. You couldn’t re-bolt it though, once you left.”
Pause. Dakar produced the prescription form. “We also found this. A prescription form. For Zopiclone. Do you know anything about it?”
She shook her head. “That’s the same drug I’m being prescribed. I’ve had it for a few months, for stress, from my GP. But it’s not one of mine. Not her signature.”
The Price to Pay Page 8
